Battle of Kilborn
The Battle of Kilborn was a battle in the Flettan Rebellion of 1106 between rebels under Xethos Stamnoudus and Drubyetskian regulars under Marcus Miller. It took place on 24 May 1107. Prelude In October of 1106, reactionary Xethos Stamnoudus and SRB leader Nataliya Sytnikov started the rebellion, with Dave DeGrenier and Greg West to the east quickly raising support. R15 Franklin Vincent had completely bungled the maix est regine'al response and up to this point, the rebellion had yet to suffer a serious setback. The Nordamerikanske Imperiet had now committed troops to the cause, although they had a long march before they would be of any use. Vincent desperately needed a victory. Though he had the manpower to overwhelm the rebels easily, his lack of focus on quality meant that individual divisions were inferior to the rebels that were quickly gaining battle experience, but his divisions were too large to properly supply, particularly in the close quarters that the rebels were forcing them to fight in. His strategy of consolidating his power in the Fletta had allowed the rebels to pick apart and destroy his untrained divisions piecemeal. For all of this, Vincent had yet to use his regulars. The Army of Drubyetski, though not particularly well-trained, were Estocada troops and still had most of its starting 270,000. Though its composition was not great, it was skilled swordsmen, which was more than the other field armies could offer. Vincent also had his personal guard of 78,500 in Cascyst. This, however, he wanted to preserve. In early May, he learned that the SRB had been using Ridgecrest as a base for months unopposed and sent the Army of Drubyetski under R13 Lucas Kinnet to investigate it. Stamnoudus and Sytnikov at this point had already begun marching north, as soon as they had word of the Battle of Goldcreek. Their progress had been fairly slow; a large percentage of Sytnikov's shieldmaidens had suffered wounds at the Battle of Boron and in their raids before and Sytnikov would not leave anyone behind. Most of them could recover, but it made managing their supply train difficult. After the Battle of Windermere, Jason Horsley began riding south with his remaining cavalry to aide Stamnoudus's march, as Stamnoudus would no longer have the luxury of a narrow pass like the one West enjoyed at Anthracite. Horsley spotted and overtook part of the Army of Drubyetski on the way south, which was spread wide to avoid taking attrition. He reached Stamnoudus on 22 May near a pass in the Drubyetski Montangora'al and gave him the news. Stamnoudus elected to fortify and garrison the village of Kilborn and ambush anything that used that pass to try to cross the Drubyetski'al. As Vincentian armies were wont to do, they began to split up to scavenge supplies. Five divisions continued along the Fletta, one division under R11 Marcus Miller broke off to cross. Armies With the addition of Horsley's cavalry, Stamnoudus had easily the strongest of the rebel armies. He had 24,594 gastraphetes line infantry remaining split between himself, Tom Woolf, Scott Schlosser, Dan Anglin and Dustin Eskridge, and he had been putting them to work training in melee with the SRB. Clay Guzalak continued to run an artillery contingency, expanding to eight ballistae while in Ridgecrest manned by the same 120 as he had before. Xena Stamnoudus was given command of a small reserve company of 350 with Abby Schlosser relegated to second-in-command. Horsley added 6,831 hussars to the mix, which would be unopposed by the exclusively infantry Army of Drubyetski. Sytnikov's SRB was still reeling somewhat from Boron, but could support Stamnoudus with 7,777 regular shieldmaidens. Stamnoudus intended not to use them at all, trusting that the extra month of sword training would be sufficient to allow his line infantry to hold on their own. Still, it was nearly eight-thousand elite swords and still a force to contend with. Elisabeth Strand, Anna Vonnegut, Jagna Sienkiewicz and Agnes Stendahl each led a company. Additionally, Viktoria Raske's junior company had not been damaged, giving the rebels 1,364 skirmishers, although Sytnikov would not let them engage in melee. As with all formed divisions in Vincent's army, Miller had 45,000 soldiers on hand. Because the Army of Drubyetski somewhat resembled regulars, he had the added bonus of a fully formed officer corps that was reasonably capable if thoroughly untrained and inexperienced. His division was split up into ten regiments, nine of which were light swordsmen and one of which was light skirmishers. R10 Ryan MacIlleriach served as Miller's second-in-command. This battle featured the closest numerical odds to date in the war. The rebels fielded a total of 41,036 soldiers with eight ballistae against the even 45,000 of the Army of Drubyetski. Battle Miller came into view of Kilborn at 11:00 on 24 May. To this point, every defeat but one for the maix est regime'al troops had been in a pass, so Miller was anxious to clear the pass as quickly as possible. Kilborn, as many villages in mountain passes were, was often used as a supply depot. As the SRB had been looting supply depots frequently over the past six months, it was little surprise to Miller to see it walled off and he did not hesitate in marching straight for it. Inside, the rebels had constructed something of a shooting gallery around the gate. The ballistae were mounted behind hill crests inside the town and could be rolled forward to shoot well beyond the walls. Horsley was kept on the other side of town, out of sight. The SRB was also kept some ways back. Stamnoudus's line infantry was positioned in a semi-circle around the gate with a gap in the line on the main road of the town, out of sight from outside the gate. The men of Guzalak's company that were not on ballistae were tasked with starting a roast; Stamnoudus was confident that Miller's troops would be hungrier than his own. At 11:30, Miller's regiment at the head of the column reached the gates, which two of Stamnoudus's men opened. The first elements of the regiment quickly saw the situation they were in, but were being pushed in by the rest of the column. Eventually, Miller saw they were not easily escaping the situation and, being one of the first ones in, ordered a charge. Stamnoudus chose this moment to open fire. R10 Russ Hornsby was second in line and, upon hearing the commotion, halted and drew up his regiment outside of the walls. Guzalak then drew up his ballistae onto the hills in the town and fired on Hornsby's regiment. Hornsby moved his regiment to the wall to use it as cover, prompting Guzalak to switch to firing at R10 Dirk Blickensderfer right behind. By 11:50, Miller's regiment had broken and were flooding out of the village. Blickensderfer withdrew to minimize his own casualties from the ballista fire. Hornsby, seeing his support melt away, also withdrew, losing a few men to ballista bolts on the retreat. In twenty minutes, the rebels had inflicted nearly three-thousand casualties, and had suffered more from friendly fire then from the enemy. Miller was not prepared for a siege but he also wanted to find out just how strong the rebels were. He allowed the trailing regiments to catch up, then formed five of them up into quintuple rank and march to the wall and try to find a weakness in it. Two more regiments, under Blickensderfer and R10 Gil Flanders were to climb the steep hill to the south on Miller's right and attempt to enter the village by descending into it where there was no wall. McIlleriach was held back, far away from the fight. Inside the town, Stamnoudus moved Schlosser and Anglin with their respective commands onto the walls. His own regiment along with Woolf's and Eskridge's continued to form a half-circle around the gate. He did manage to take advantage of the downtime by using Guzalak's troops to distribute fresh roast to his troops. Miller's advance At 12:30, Miller moved his main line forward. Guzalak's ballistae began firing and quickly began picking off the middle command while R10s Geoff Bloomquist, Greg Cuance, Bill Ivatt, Duncan Wheeler and Hornsby as well as Miller watched from a distance. Once they were within 300 metres, Schlosser and Anglin opened fire. Miller moved forward his skirmishing regiment under the command of R10 Wes Dupont to counter them, but the makeshift crenellations prevented Dupont's skirmishers from effectively threatening the rebels. Once Miller's infantry had reached the walls, they began funnelling toward the gate; though Miller had wanted them to hack down the wall, it was clearly too thick to quickly destroy and they were under fire from directly above their heads. Miller saw it and rode forward to withdraw them. Guzalak saw Miller ride forward and fired a bolt through his chest. Since they weren't being called back, Miller's infantry kept flooding through the gate and into Stamnoudus's shooting gallery. However, they had the numbers this time to push into Stamnoudus's line and engaged in a brawl of a melee. Sytnikov sent her skirmishers up the northern slope and begin firing into the blob while her regulars were drawn up and various points behind Stamnoudus's line. Eskridge's company began to waver at about 13:10, but Anglin had his line turn around and fire a supporting volley into the backs of the maix est regime'al troops and Eskridge was able to stabilize his own troops. Stamnoudus saw it and ordered an advance. Sytnikov sent her regulars forward to support it, and the circle closed in on the leaderless opposition. Their R10s were not eager to move forward after watching Miller get shot down, but at 13:25, Wheeler suddenly spurred his horse forward and caught out Guzalak, who was eating. Wheeler began extricating troops from the mess and began a somewhat organized retreat from Kilborn. Horsley's charge By 13:40, the battle was over for the most part. Bloomquist and Cuance had regained control of their regiments, though a gastraphetes bolt had dislocated Ivatt's left kneecap and he was left behind while Hornsby's regiment had shattered and he was chasing after it. Wheeler had managed to escape the fight unscathed and had sent for MacIlleriach to move forward with his regiment to act as rearguard. Inside the city, Stamnoudus had split his troops and moved them to either side of the road and created a clear path for Jason Horsley and his cavalry. Horsley needed no further orders and charged out of the gate before Wheeler could reform his regiment. Dupont's skirmishers broke as soon as they saw cavalry and crashed into Wheeler's infantry as they attempted to brace. They ended up serving as an excellent buffer for Wheeler, but they offered no resistance and Dupont was stabbed through the left shoulderblade. Neither Bloomquist nor Cuance had sufficient control of their forces to support Wheeler, but MacIlleriach was closing in. Horsley pulled his hussars back a few hundred metres, then turned around and charged MacIlleriach, instead. MacIlleriach's troops were exhausted from running forward and were simply bowled over by Horsley. Horsley simply pulled through MacIlleriach's line and then hit Bloomquist in the rear where Bloomquist received a sword slash through his upper chest and would die of the wound. Horsley then moved to hit Cuance's regiment and completely shattered it, killing Cuance much the same way as Bloomquist. MacIlleriach and Wheeler fled in opposite directions, MacIlleriach up the southern slope and Wheeler up the northern slope. By this point, Flanders and Blickensderfer had caught sight of their force being summarily destroyed and decided not to charge into the village. They instead withdrew southward to rejoin the bulk of the Army of Drubyetski. The battle ended at 14:05. Aftermath The Battle of Kilborn proved to be another decisive tactical victory for the rebels. The rebels had lost a total of 1,895 (645 killed, 1,250 severely wounded), of which none were Sytnikov's and only a token number were Horsley's. The hapless Vincentians had suffered 23,560 casualties, including its R11 and four R10s. As was becoming typical for Stamnoudus's victories, none of the opposition that could not escape was left alive, although he supposedly allowed a large number of wounded to escape, perhaps from sympathy for his countrymen and perhaps from Sytnikov's influence. The battle was equally clear though perhaps less decisive a victory for the rebels. Less than 5% of its engaging force had fallen in the battle, while over 52% of Miller's division had been killed and 72% of it had been put out of action. However, it was not a significant blow to Vincent's army, as it represented roughly 3% of Vincent's total available force remaining. The rebels could still consider it a net gain, as it cost them less than 2% of their available force. The battle pushed the rebels' Hoktikte Score up to 16%. While the rebels had failed to completely destroy the division, Horsley's mopping work had ensured that it would be some time before they could properly reform into what token force they had left. It would also be unlikely that R13 Lucas Kinnet would be able to receive word of the battle, stop his march, turn around and catch Stamnoudus and Sytnikov if they moved quickly, so at 17:30, Stamnoudus ordered the army eastward out of Kilborn and turned north to march on Flettaville. Vincent made a feeble attempt to intercept them at Clear Lake, but Flettaville would fall under siege on 10 June. Farther to the north, Dave DeGrenier moved out of the Goldcreek pass to march on Cascyst. After two small skirmishes at Alice and Clayton, he besieged Cascyst on 9 June with Starr Magnussen reinforcing him on 11 June.